Fantasy Races

[Anonymous No.14285415]

Why are fantasy races so unoriginal?
>Dwarf
>Orc
>Elf
>High elf
>Dark elf
>Blood elf
>Wood elf
>Elf elf
Does anyone have a piece of /lit/erature that has some original back drop?
It doesn't matter if it's just one race or 20. I just want something new.
>Pic related, insectoid race

[Anonymous No.14285424]

>>14285415
because h*manoids are all boring

[Anonymous No.14285425]

Skyrim has the Argonians, i thought that was cool and the daedra are kinda their own race

[Anonymous No.14285432]

>>14285415
Faces like shields. You should fuck off out of here too, baiting cunt.

[Anonymous No.14285433]

>>14285415

That's not nice, she is pretty

[Anonymous No.14285455]

>>14285415
Yes, humanoid spinoffs are boring, whenever I watch sci fi, it breaks immersion, like star trek and shit, atleast star wars doesn't take itself seriously

[Anonymous No.14285457]

>>14285415
Why is fantasy so unoriginal?
>ftfy
shit is endlessly derivative and written exclusively by people with the emotional intelligence of a child masquerading as someone with the emotional intelligence of the village grandmother

[Anonymous No.14285469]

>>14285455
Babylon 5 has those ancient races. I've been falling asleep watching Andromeda but I don't know if I like it. Lexx and Farscape are good though not necessarily for weird races.

[Anonymous No.14285487]

>>14285432
What even determines bait, serious topic. Shitty unoriginal races just pigeon hole the entire genre

[Anonymous No.14285501]

>>14285415
>Why are these things I already know not new to me?

[Anonymous No.14285541]

>>14285415
What makes high fantasy meaningful and immersive is its foundation in our own (Anglo-Saxon) folklore. This is why the idea of the monkey people from the Ramayana doesn't make your spine tingle nearly as much as the fleeting mention of the "sea-brutes" in Beowulf.
Completely original aspects of worldbuilding don't tap into that depth of meaning.

[Anonymous No.14285571]

>>14285541
I disagree. I think it's the complete originality and detachment from the real world setting and culture that makes it immersive.
Anything existing brings me back to my room.

[Anonymous No.14285804]

>>14285487
Tales of Terror from Tokyo.

[Anonymous No.14286073]

>>14285541
The problem with modern fantasy and the races thereof is exactly that this connection has been severed

[Anonymous No.14286562]

Because, for the most part, fantasy races represent the overemphasis of one universal human trait, a more specific cultural trait, or some mix of the two, to create easily intuited archetypes. The post-Tolkien Dwarf, Elf (and sub-elves), Lizard guy, Orc/uglyman race, goblin/wretched midget race, have been repeated and refined because they work. As boring as they are the irony is that when fantasy authors deviate from that formula and create their own races the result is usually even more uninspired. Science fiction tends to produce more substantial races than fantasy because science allows for more variation than myth, but they tend to be drier.

[Anonymous No.14286582]

>>14285415
I have one
>you'reanidiot race
What do you think of it, say it.

[Anonymous No.14286587]

>>14285415
Lmao fish face

[Anonymous No.14286610]

>>14286582
>you'reanidiot race
?

[Anonymous No.14286618]

>>14286610
>>you'reanidiot race
You were supposed o say i'maretard

[Anonymous No.14286621]

>>14286618
oh

[Anonymous No.14287311]

>>14285415

Pic rel. Has DAROTH
A race trapped in some magical no go zone barrier after genociding too much. Then they start spilling into human world.

They are big and insectoid armoured, enjoy human flesh bc they LOVE salt. Very hard to kill and are in high numbers. High IQ, especially in warfare. No problem learning human speech. Main time spent genociding lesser races for lebensraum.
Respawn every 20 years in spawningpools at the heart of their hive like cities (memory retains). Fucking OP and based.

book starts with a mere 5 hives appearing on a plain hosting a few thousand Daroth. Humans are quickly btfo and a few tribes start collaborating - if only to survive a few cycles longer. A few cities attempt to hold out whilst an entire continent flees overseas to distant isles. Mc sends them back to purgatory by accessing the vengeful spiritual soul power of a very angry advanced race genocided a few aons earlier, Trapping the based Daroth in a black pearl of magic

[Anonymous No.14287586]

>>14285415
What do you want, a race of worms? Some faceless entity with obscure values and goals that you can't even remotely relate to?

The primal savagery and battle-lust of the Greenskins taps into my own primal and savage roots - I can understand it, and observe this sort of savagery in recent history - I need only be reminded of the Vikings, or perhaps modern day allahu-akbar's. The aristocratic values of the High Elves - this, I can also understand, and part of me can relate to it. The grudge-bearing Dwarves, relentless in their vengeance and pursuit of justice for the wrongs wrought upon their ancestors, no matter how long ago - they will not allow time to erase their memory - this too I can understand, and I somewhat admire it. The noble preservers, guardians, and stewards of the verdant, of the natural world - this sort of devout conservationism - I too can relate to, and understand it.

Or did you literally mean just physical appearance?

[Anonymous No.14287597]

>>14285457
Because Tolkien fucked everything up by being too good.

[Anonymous No.14287669]

>>14285457
god I wish I had a village grandmother

[Anonymous No.14287704]

>>14285571
Same here. I use fantasy as an escape from real life, not as an extension of it. That's why I like Lovecraft so much, because it doesn't have any shitty romantic subplots and is detached from the real world in a way that I find very comforting.

[Anonymous No.14287933]

>>14287586
There's more emotions than being smug clearly aryan elves, or jaded greedy dwarves.
If I had to on the spot just think of two new races just for the fuck of it, how about some 6 limbed insectoid like hivemind where the survival of the nest superceeds the survival of the invidividual.
If you're really out there searching for meaning this could be representative of asians, but never explicitly stated.
A second one could be something not relatable in motivation but universally polarizing. It could be something that even the traditionally evil faction fears just because of how weird it is. (Think of the flood from Halo) A third faction that doesn't seek destruction of the world, or some eternal righteousness, but complete rejection of the two standing factions.

[Anonymous No.14287956]

>>14287704
What I pulled from the LC universe is that it's okay to have a villain that is largely unknown or at least can itself be known but their motivations misunderstood.
Some of their design can be repetitive but at least it breaks the mold.
Dagon and the deep ones are my favorite from his universe.

[Anonymous No.14288011]

>>14285415
ayy lmao

[Anonymous No.14288061]

The larger the market, the more bland and contrived the product becomes. Fantasy is a victim of success

[Anonymous No.14288074]

>>14285415
Try Perdido Street Station.

[Anonymous No.14289166]

>>14288074
At least he tried with the frog and cactus races.
I can respect this.

[Anonymous No.14289175]

The Vorrh is pretty cool

[Anonymous No.14289198]

Eldritch abomination is my favorite fantasy race

[Anonymous No.14289298]

>>14289175
Please explain?

[Anonymous No.14289540]

>>14285415
cute

[Anonymous No.14290437]

>>14285415
>>14289540
drew her

[Anonymous No.14290468]

>>14285433
it hurts a person to say they're ugly, but to say someone is pretty when they're not, doesn't that destroy even the meaning of beauty? if a pile of garbage and a rose are both as beautiful each other, then doesn't that mean everything is just as ugly as everything else?

[Anonymous No.14291049]

>>14290437
Nice

[Anonymous No.14291134]

>>14290437
holy fuck this is actually really nice

[Anonymous No.14291157]

>>14287933
>how about some 6 limbed insectoid like hivemind where the survival of the nest superceeds the survival of the invidividual.
the vord, codex alera

[Anonymous No.14291252]

>>14287933
>insectoid like hivemind where the survival of the nest superceeds the survival of the invidividual.
Theres a speicies of ant that is mostly female. The females will battle and attempt to castrate each other by ripping out the others sexual organs. The castrated females become docile and subservient. The remaining female ant with her sex organs still in tact becomes queen, and for the duration of her reign she has to continue castrating the other female ants until she is finally overpowered and replaced by a younger queen. I dont know why exactly that reminded me of that.

[Anonymous No.14292118]

>>14285415
You're reading the cheap low hanging fruit fantasy. Come back when you have read Voyage to Arcturus.

[Anonymous No.14292450]

>>14285415
Unironically my diary desu.
I still have classic fantasy races to give a point of familiarity for the weirder ones and because I like them.

[Anonymous No.14292653]

>>14285415
what ethnicity is that?

[Anonymous No.14292773]

>>14285571
I think that both can work. One has some historical package which can either help or hurt if utilized effectively. Creating an entirely new race requires more effort and setting building. Tbh, when talking about familiarity I usually set stories/settings into 3 categories:

1 non fiction/realistic fiction. A good amount of forknowledge is dependent and expected to be had by the reader in terms of material cultural experience outside of the novel in question. So most stories set in modern day.

2Cultural fiction: fiction that is dependent on some forknowledge about cultural ideas as well as material. So well known archetypes, superhero’s in the present day setting, or elves and dwarves in a fantasy. Plays around and uses commonly heald concepts while still requiring some setting development.

3Xenofiction: deals with material that the reader is not expected to have a cultural touchstone with. An exercise in reality development instead of using one’s own as a very close base. Will often have to build stuff from the ground up within the novel itself

Of course these are not hard and fast categories, but I think it’s good to judge a book by how familiar the author wants the reader to be with the setting at hand. I don’t think one is better than another, familiarity is a great way to instill empathy and dive deeper into particular nuances, while foreignness allows one to learn a whole new set of rules and perspectives.

[Anonymous No.14293383]

>>14285415
Books are products, and once you find a formula that works, you're gonna stick to that because you want the best return on your investment. Your audience will know what an orc is no matter what. It's in the zeitgeist.

Also, frankly, fantasy is very incestuous. People want to make stuff based off of what inspires them. Tolkien was super incredibly good and fresh, and from there on out his predecessors copied him, and then the predecessors copied their predecessors, and so on and so forth.

I also think you have to be a pretty smart person to come up with new stuff. I think the best fantasy writers are usually people who have backgrounds in academic stuff like anthropology. But most people just want to jack off about their hard magic system or whatever.

Also I'd say that a lot of fantasy is basically just about male weakness in one way or another.

Anyways scifi/fantasy is generally a really boring genre unless if we're talking about people like Ursula K Le Guin or Stanislaw Lem or w/e. Ted Chiang's okay.

[Anonymous No.14293423]

>>14288074
This.
>Also Blindsight.

[Anonymous No.14293679]

play morrowind, the races are just standard fantasy (plus cat people, lizard people) but the actual setting is one of the most interesting and unique in a fantasy story

[Anonymous No.14293935]

>>14287933
>how about some 6 limbed insectoid like hivemind where the survival of the nest superceeds the survival of the invidividual.
You think that's original?

[Anonymous No.14293995]

>>14293383
>Ursula K Le Guin or Stanislaw Lem or w/e. Ted Chiang's okay.
Yikes, shit-tier taste, man.

[Anonymous No.14294603]

>>14285415
Are you talking about actual fantasy literature or playing Skyrim?

[Anonymous No.14296088]

The Wayfarer Redemption has the Icarii which are cool winged aryan people

[Anonymous No.14297022]

>>14293935
more original than elves and it took 30 seconds.
How about you scratch your balls and show me what you can come up with

[Anonymous No.14297068]

>>14285433
agreed. i have unconvetional tastes, so pic is unironicly qt especially the front view.
does anyone here have their own races? i have goatpeople, now there's an urge to write about them.

[Anonymous No.14297181]

>>14290437
you inspired me, brother.

[Anonymous No.14297251]

>>14297022
Tri-gendered lizards that have one of the not-childbearing sexes more numerous and well-suited to intellectual tasks, and the other has elaborate systems of horns and scales for dueling others of their gender. Our story finds them during their own technological gender revolution where the greater intelligence of the non-dueling males begins to call into question the traditional dominance of the dueling type.

[Anonymous No.14297869]

>>14293679
What makes the races good is they have defined cultures. The human races alone have enough variety.
Morrowind made the most unique fantasy race ever, with the Dark Elves, because the lore incorporated deeper elements of culture. The Temple and the Tribunal are like a mix of Second Temple Judaism and Roman Catholicism, even adapting some phraseology. "Three Gods, One Faith," is similar to "One God in Three Persons."

The culture is what makes the race. Gracile elves living in noble respect of the forests is dull and on the nose. That's not a real culture, and that's why people sniff out how bullshit stereotypes of "Noble Savage" Indians are, especially Indians.
The Dark Elves are actually unlikable. The audience need neither sympathy or antipathy, for the purpose of the story, and it depends on their perspective.

[Anonymous No.14298026]

>>14285415
Lots of fantasies still seem to be stuck in Germanic mythology. It is fine to derive from that, and great literary achievement could be produced through it as a fantasy story's basis, but it is overrepresented, probably due to Tolkien's popularity and brilliance, which so many others wish to emulate.

[Anonymous No.14298033]

>>14285415
Tats kause yu dont reed enouf proper scienc fikshun , bro. Tats y yu dumb

[Anonymous No.14298315]

>>14287311
cringe, read some good fantasy/sci-fi

[Anonymous No.14299336]

>>14290437
>>14297181
based

[Anonymous No.14300462]

>>14285415
Roadside picnic??
Ever heard mudafucka?

[Anonymous No.14300538]

The limit is rather quickly reached in regards to how many fantasy races you can conjure up.
You either use humans as a template and that's how you end up with dwarves, elf variations and orcs, or you use animals as a template and that's how you end with lizard/insect/cat/ people.
But really I don't need authors to make try-hard attempts at creature design, I'd rather see them place the already existing races in interesting cultural environments. Humanoids with pointy ears are fine, just don't make them noble forest people with 1000 year lifespans.

[Anonymous No.14300585]

>>14285415
What about the halfkin furries like minotaurs, centaurs, and satyrs.

[Anonymous No.14300610]

I read somewhere speculation that early ideas of elves were inspired by people with Williams syndrome, who not only have an elfish appearance but due to their intellectual disabilities often have playful cheerful dispositions. Often used as court jesters. I don't think I really believe it, but on a broader sense it's not unbelievable to think that mythological races come as much from biological variance within the race as they do from variance between races.

[Anonymous No.14301840]

>>14297251
that's thinking with your dick in your hand instead of your mouth there king jack off.
Little too social justicey for me though. Keep trying.
>>14300538
I prefer to think of unique abilities or certain animals and build around those, or certain characteristics you find in the basis of all earth life and just change them until they seem plausible.
>Kangaroo/frog leap
>Different forms of floating with hot gas sacs
>Flying/gliding
Even already did the tri-gender thing that the above guy did almost identically a few years ago but without the nerd uprising aspect.
Seems a better way to write characters than simply using large land animals or noteworthy cultural influences to spawn 90% of your originality.

[Anonymous No.14301983]

>>14300610
Yiu think wrong traditional elves were etheral and pixie/wisp-like

[Anonymous No.14302077]

>What do you want, a race of worms? Some faceless entity with obscure values and goals that you can't even remotely relate to?
HELL YEA! Gimme dat limit experience!

>>14287933
fuck your image

[Anonymous No.14302088]

>>14287586
>What do you want, a race of worms? Some faceless entity with obscure values and goals that you can't even remotely relate to?
HELL YEA! Gimme dat limit experience!

>>14287933
fuck your image

[Anonymous No.14302109]

>>14285415
I bet she had a lot more personality than her more conventionally attractive peers. Attractiveness is a detriment to the development of a personality, especially in women.

That is to say, the less attractive women I've spoken to throughout my life have almost always been more pleasant to talk to, and somewhat interesting in terms of personality (compared to other women, at least) than the attractive ones who coast through life just by their looks.

[DoctorGreen !DRgReeNusk No.14302273]

>>14286562
> refined because they work
no, they're junk. a fast food seeked by those who do not want to bother making their own mind actually realize or correct the miscarries that one may think about.
They are like sugar in a bad plain cake that is eaten by those who are mentality obese -to addicted to get their shit straight.
the boring races, that is, the bad plain hyper sugar'd cake are a symptommy and Tommy is a moron.
Fuck you, Tommy. Fuck you

[Anonymous No.14302283]

>>14285415
>Pic related, insectoid race
More like bean race

[Anonymous No.14302304]

>>14285457
>the emotional intelligence of the village grandmother
This. First mistake of Fantasy is forget it's roots on common Folk Tales and, as pornography, indulges on basic desires. No wisdom to be found.

[Anonymous No.14302308]

>>14285571
>>14287704
Go back to your >>>isek/a/i

[appafag No.14302837]

>>14285425
Elder Scrolls has had Argonians all of the series. Daedra are more akin to supernatural beings from an alternate plane of existence. "Rebel gods", if you will.

[Anonymous No.14302915]

>>14301840
It's only social justicey if you write it as "this is directly analogous to modern human problems and I, the author, will tell you which side is completely correct."